Poll: Centre 22.3, Soc Dems 22.3, Coalition 21.5

Helsingin Sanomat published the first poll (fi) since before the election in which the National Coalition Party is in third place, dropping down to 21.5 percent. Meanwhile the Social Democratic Party and the Centre Party are tied for first at 22.3 percent. The Social Democrats are the biggest movers this time around, gaining 0.6 percentage points. Everyone else is within 0.3 percentage points of the previous poll.

Although the poll was released now, the first interviews for it were conducted in late November. As such, the nurses' pay row is one possible reason for the changes. Looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the government parties as a group started losing suppport in September. The public sector pay talks got underway in September and the Union of Health and Social Care Professionals (Tehy) rejected the initial municipal employers' offer at the end of that month.

CP   NCP  SDP  LA  GL   CD  SPP TF  gov  source
23.1 22.3 21.4 8.8 8.5  4.9 4.6 4.1 58.5 PE 3/18
23.0 24.1 20.7 8.2 9.4  4.5 4.4 4.5 60.9 TT 4/5
22.8 23.3 21.1 8.4 8.9  4.5 4.3 4.9 59.3 TG 5/20
23.4 23.3 20.8 9.0 9.6  5.0 4.1 4.4 60.4 RI 5/25
22.4 23.4 21.7 8.4 10.1 4.7 4.1 4.3 60.0 TT 6/9
23.0 23.2 21.5 8.3 9.0  4.3 4.2 5.0 59.4 TG 6/26
22.8 23.9 21.2 8.5 9.3  4.7 4.4 4.3 60.4 TT 7/2
22.3 23.6 21.2 8.5 9.4  4.6 4.5 4.7 59.8 TT 8/13
22.7 23.2 21.6 8.1 9.4  4.7 4.5 4.6 59.8 TT 9/9
22.5 22.6 21.5 8.4 9.0  4.6 4.6 5.0 58.7 TG 9/22
22.6 22.8 21.8 7.9 9.8  4.8 4.4 4.8 59.6 TT 10/13
22.6 21.7 21.7 8.6 9.1  4.6 4.7 5.1 58.1 TG 10/31
22.6 22.3 22.3 8.4 9.7  4.4 4.6 5.0 59.2 TT 11/19
22.3 21.5 22.3 8.6 9.4  4.6 4.6 4.9 57.8 TG 12/16

Legend:
CP = Centre Party
NCP = National Coalition Party
SDP = Social Democratic Party
LA = Left Alliance
GL = Green League
CD = Christian Democrats
SPP = Swedish People's Party
TF = True Finns
gov = government parties
PE = parliamentary election
TT = Taloustutkimus / YLE
TG = TNS Gallup / Helsingin Sanomat
RI = Research International Finland / MTV3